Vase Heart

And I will love you

With a fragile delicacy

Honouring your vase like heart

 

I will polish you with words of love

Of mastery, of magic

I will display you on the highest mantle

The pinnacle of my life

For all the world to see

 

And if there ever comes a time

Where my actions fall short

And my words too clumsy, too brash

I will fill all the cracks in you

With the tenderness you deserve

 

For there is immeasurable beauty

In your stunning sensitivity

A heart so feeling, so full

And I will love you

With all the gentleness & tenderness

Your heart requires

And I will love you

Until all the seeds in you bloom full

And I will love you

Today

And ever more

 

I will love you.

Commentary: Vase Heart

Vase Heart came, like many of my poems, from a self-reflective state. The poem grow out of the understanding that I am a sensitive soul and the vase heart in question is essentially mine. When I was younger, at times, I struggled with being sensitive. On those days when I felt my heart was unsuited for this world, I would imagine what it would be like if I were to maintain the same state of perpetual apathy I would see displayed in others. Would it be better if I were this way? Easier? I’d asked myself and, thankfully, the answer has always been no.

To be sensitive, to have the strength to feel the colourful spectrum of emotions that make us alive, that make us human, is a gift. It is so important to stay soft, to stay loving in the midst of the cruelty we are faced with in the world. There is strength in this. There is power in this.

The poetic voice in this poem is the ideal lover for the sensitive soul, a lover who honours and respects your sensitivity and learns to love you through it. It forms as a reminder for those who need it that this love is out there and is worth waiting for.

All in all, this poem is about loving with intention and grace, the way God encourages us to love, the way God loves us.

Gethsemane

There will be times you are at your lowest points

When anguish engulfs you and there is nowhere left to run

And the words of our loved ones fall flat, hallow

 

No one can meet you in this darkness

And the support will seem lack lustre

Will seem disingenuous

Will be flawed

And you retreat within, in solitude

Praying away this poison chalice

This cup of suffering

In a manic display

Until your legs give way and succumb

To the gravity of surrender

 

And then

Beyond the unrest

Beyond the disquiet of your anxiety

The starring of the still small voice

Overtakes you to reveal

 

“Beyond this pain

Beyond this bitter suffering

And far beyond what your mind can perceive

Lays a promise, a hope,

A purpose for all that be

Rooted in my immeasurable love

 

And, oh, how I love you,

Cherished one

One day you will see

The glory and the splendour

Of an eternity with me.”

 

And as these words leave me

Some things do stay

Like the peace that passeth understanding

To guide me on my way.

Journal entry: Seasons change

Looking back at Seasons Change I can see how the inspirations that drove the poem really shine through. One being this poem:

“Of all the people you have kissed she was your favourite because she didn’t flinch when you curled your hand around her neck and tightened. She said “I break the law because I’ve never broken a heart and I want to know what it feels like to be the brick not the window pane”. When she’s drunk she’ll dress up for you, all straps & lace & stockings. When she’s high she’ll dress down for you, all skin & skin & skin.” – by Annabelle Nyst

These powerful, delicate lines have followed me for over 5 years, still affecting me each time I read them and I wanted to write a poem that carried the same energy and life (a very hard task but at least I tried).

From what started off as a few lines, my poem gained a life of its own as I got really involved with the idea that I wanted this poem to be about love, to about a relationship that goes through natural seasons. A love that grows from an intense infatuation into a mild disdain, leading to an eventual break up. I wanted this poem to really embody the imagery of earth’s four seasons (here’s hoping I achieved that??).

When I wrote “Seasons Change” in 2017, it may have been a few months after a month long romance I had that I couldn’t say inspired this poem entirely as the love presented in this poem is grounded in a long-standing relationship that I had yet to experience. But I find it so interesting how  I can transfigure my experience, of a short whirlwind romance, into a poem about a true love relationship that grew cold over time and only freedom from that relationship could bring my protagonist back to the warmth of her own self love. But I guess that’s the beauty of art and partially fictional prose.

I can relate to this poem a lot more now after recently coming out of a relationship and feeling the comfort and relief that can come from a much needed time alone. It’s interesting to think that this poem kind of foreshadows things I was yet to experience. But that could be a result of time being an illusion, that the dividing line between past, present and future is an illusion, that everything that has happened or will happen is happening right now in this very moment but we are unable to perceive it. But I digress…

This poem is about a seasonal love affair that contains the same torrid energy as the weather, holding the same beauty and inescapably mystery.

Your Truly,

Ruth Elora -x-

P.S. Read ‘Seasons Change‘ if you haven’t yet, love ya xx

 

Seasons Change

You were my climate

I would bend & yield to your slightest variation

When you were my sun, I would dress down for you, all skin, melanin, exposure

Blanketed by your warmth

I vacationed in your love

 

Until the season called for your coldness

I would grimace & endure your presence

Like a sore throat in recovery

 

The autumns of your indifference

Brought with it a kaleidoscope of mystery

As the leaves fell from our dreams

Unrealised

We marvelled at the unsettling paradox

That the beauty of our ideals may never be fully actualised

But the beauty remains unwavering

All the same

 

The winter of our love

Brought with it a necessary mourning

As I purged you, heart and soul

Piercing through with icy precision

I allowed it to hurt

I gloried in the courage it took to brave your coldness

To endure

Until the last morsel of this blizzarding love

Melted away

 

Bringing forth a spring of reflection

Of clarity

As I meditated on all the reasons I had to leave:

That no matter how hard I tried to adapt

To your vicissitudes

Your endless variations

I found myself staring

Perpetually

At this ticket back

To myself

 

For my heart is a tropical island

Of dreams & beauty & irresistible warmth

Until my rain comes like a hot baptism

Ready to cleanse & make a new

To saver in the promise of a warmer tomorrow

 

And for now, maybe that’s what I need more

As I vacationed in your temperate maritime climate

It is time for this sojourning soldier to return home

Look Within

It’s not here

The Fear that plagues you

The Love that binds you

The Desire that drives you

 

It’s not here

The mechanisms of love

The barriers you place around it

The romantic illusions that pollute it

The myths that mask you from the truth

 

It’s not here

The saving grace

The divine light

Blazing away sorrows history

From your veins, from your veins

 

It’s not here

In that powdery embrace

A nose full, a mouth full,

a forbidden pharmacy

 

It’s not here

In that liquid luck

And all the ways you try to orchestrate your own destruction

It’s not here

It’s not here

It’s not here

 

 

Look within.

Kaleidoscope

Loving you

With this kaleidoscope view

Of haunting visions

Misleading me & you

But caught up in the passion

Of the red & blues

Entranced by the mystery

And drowning in a history

Of powders, pills & booze

 

Consciousness – in & out we fly

We swallow up weeks

As we soar through the sky

And in my mind’s eye

I see you

Dancing in transition

Flickering red & blue

A dizzying display

As you multiply from one to two

To an endless supply of you

 

Of this haze

Filling my days

With dreams & nightmares

That torment when I crave

My next ticket

Soaring up high

Together, you & I

We’ll reinvent the meaning

Of floating

Through this life

 

Cheers to crashing countlessly

From the great heights we soar

For I remember truly

Loving you was an emotional war

 

For my unwavering patriotism

I refuse to leave

For as long as my lungs allow me to breathe

And as long as my veins bleed

Blue

I will continue

Continue

Loving you

With this kaleidoscope view

Of haunting visions

Misleading me & you

To a grave uncertain, but coming, but true

A Poet in Love |Excerpt from a book I may write

It was the mystery her midnight eyes exude that I found most alluring. The little tell tell signs of emotions that eyes of a different shade would reveal unconsciously; her dark brown hues kept hidden.

And I gaze into them; searching for the dilated pupils, the star struck glow, that faint glimmer and airiness that would all but confirm my suspicions. But instead I lose myself in this search; in an opal sea, for it is only her eyes that have the power to overwhelm and entrap me.

– I love her wildly.

Smoking Kills

You are the poison in my veins

But I inhale you

Still

My Mayfair sky blue

We create heaven

Clouds of euphoric ecstasy

But I still choke on the aftertaste

I still gag on the fumes of you

Of your disregard

 

You cause havoc on my insides

Yet

I inhale you, still

 

I had the spark you needed

Potential ignites

You pass through my lips with a violent kiss

Straight to the lungs

And I watch as I breathe out the daydreams

My fickle fantasy

This habit is not as artistic as it seems

 

But I watch the sapphire smoke dance in the wind

Haunting the skies with your fleeting beauty

The embers of our love

I prolong the last breaths of you like meditation

Clutching on to the chemicals

The high

For as long as I can

 

I burn through the nicotine as it burns through me

No Greater Love

When seeking solace, I sit in solitude

Sufficed alone by the timeless, the biblical, the true

Surrendered, wholly , I follow the call of a heart pursued;

 

For this Love, it leaps through the lines,

Your presence, it penetrates my pain,

Your call, it brought me to these rhymes;

 

And, overwhelmed, undeserving, of this Love so true.

By your Grace alone do I live through;

With these tears, baptismal, I awe at this great gift of You.